


The Ghost in the Machine

by deathwailart



Category: Original Work
Genre: Brainwashing, Dissociation, Existential Crisis, Gen, Ghosts in the Machine, Horror, POV Second Person, Psychological Trauma, Reprogramming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-17
Updated: 2014-08-17
Packaged: 2018-02-13 13:06:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2151807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwailart/pseuds/deathwailart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You are an echo.  An echo of an echo of an echo.  You are a puppet on strings that pull and tangle and stretch and snap.  Was this body ever yours?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ghost in the Machine

You are an echo.  An echo of an echo of an echo.  You are a puppet on strings that pull and tangle and stretch and _snap_.  Was this body ever yours?

_"The data is corrupted."_

Pressure on the back of your head (is it your head, what are you?  You are grainy surveillance you are a collection of peripheral blurs reflecting on glass and mirrored surfaces) a quiet click and the pons is involved in dreams.  Do you dream?  Because sometimes there are images in your head, a new language to shape your tongue around, name after name after name when it’s the only time you have one.  (You are _Blair Aitken_ , you are _Sasha Petrov_ , you are _Morgan Perrault_ , you are what we say you _subject_.)  There’s a needle in your arm, tape that pulls the skin too tight and you’ve never stopped flinching each time they rip it off.

(You remember – _do you?_ – someone pulling it off carefully.  You remember – maybe maybe maybe – that you pulled it off.  Someone sniffling, you laughing and patting them. 

You don’t know what’s yours anymore.)

What are you?  You don’t know.  Well, you think you know.  You have to be a person because you’ve seen yourself sometimes, you can see your feet and hands but it’s so hard to tell when you don’t know when you’re awake and when you aren’t.  Two bloodied hands, feet laced into boots, dark clothes, lenses to reduce glare, fabric over your mouth (your mouth is a thin hard line, you think it should feel different but the snarl is _wrong wrong wrong_ ) and you move like a hunter.  You are a dog of war (you don’t know how true that is, trained attack dog, loyal because you know nothing else) and they hold the leash and if you go too far they drag you back, choking and clawing and whining.

You are—

_"BP is spiking we need to-"_  
  
_"Dammit stop panicking you idiot-"_  
_  
"I’m not the one whose ass is on the line here!"_  
  
"Fine, try this, the subject can handle it."

You are dreaming but you’re not because you’re awake, you can hear a drip drip drip from the needle in your vein and it itches and you want to move but you can’t, you can’t move, you can’t move please help but your mouth won’t work and you’re trying to thrash and you _can’t_ —

You can breathe.  The weight on your chest is gone.  The tape is ripped off your arm.  Your legs kick wildly now that they can.  There are men and women in white coats and masks, the light is too bright and you blink to try to focus, your eyes are wet.  Something hisses and clicks, you can lift your head.  You sit up straight, swing your legs over the side of the bed and look up at them, jumping when a tear drips onto your head

There’s a name in your head, a life.  You get to your feet – are they your feet?  Is this real? – and touch the red skin of your arm.  They frown and when you go to touch the back of your head a hand catches your wrist, forces it down.

"Again," one of them says, sighing behind the mask.  "We’ll try again.  Something’s been corrupted, we’ll figure it out, let’s try again."

You lie down, there’s the rip of velcro before it fastens around your bicep, the hiss and pinch before the needle goes in.

"Please-"  That’s you.  Your voice.  You remember, you have a-  You are…you are…

You are an echo of an echo.

**Author's Note:**

> The character in this was written to be a blank slate hence the use of unisex names and the lack of real description of the body. It was hugely influenced by watchin The Winter Soldier but real life (university) got in the way so I really don't fully remember what I was trying to do with this at all but I wanted to finish it. In time I might come back and have another go at it.
> 
> Also available over on [tumblr](http://bansheesquad.tumblr.com/post/94944822404/the-ghost-in-the-machine) with the graphic


End file.
